Beyond Conscience

Evil has many characteristics and like most things in nature it changes and adapts without changing its true nature. Like the desert plant ironwood, evil thrives, often in harsh and unfavorable conditions; sometimes it hibernates like most plants and animals and waits for the time to emerge but unlike most animals that hibernate without activity, evil does so with much more underneath the surface. Evil plants its root deeper and deeper inside its host, so silently and patiently, it goes unnoticed.

Unfortunately, everyone, everywhere is prone to these attacks but the truth is, without a viable host, evil hovers and eventually dies away. The bible in enumerating this said, resist the devil and he will flee, for Christ, that resistance came 3 times, for others, much more but most Christians seldom count the times, we assume that once we overcome temptation, it will not try its ugly head again and we relax our guards and open ourselves up to an even stronger enemy.

The devil is a bad devil and he has been around long enough to see the future become history, he understands times, he knows the tricks in the books, he knew when man was formed and what he is made up of and how to play man to becoming his plaything. Truth is, the bible affirms, of our own wills, we can do nothing…

One thing baffles me in the constant struggle between good and evil, the difference between two opposing ends. One being the knowing Christians have of redemption, that satisfaction that leaves you unsatisfied until you find rest in Him and the other being a life lived unknowing, when empathy is a feeling long gone, when actions are a product of something not will, not morals, not necessity but pure undefined nothing, when life is lived without meaning. The juxtapositions along these lines, knowing that one can be this sane and senile is a reality most fail to glimpse in a lifetime.

I watch the stories of death in Northern Nigeria propagated by the media, the decapitation of heads by fanatics using religion and belief systems as compelling reasons and I wonder if they ever think about it, the acts, the perpetrators, if they go back to their families and kiss their sons and daughters goodnight and how they justify the life of loved ones over the hundreds and thousands of death at their hands. It appears to me however that for most, that thought does not exist anymore. At first perhaps, the nightmares, the thoughts of reason and battles of the mind but no more, they have grown thick skins and have lived past it, its normal for them, they have outgrown emotions and remorse, the evil has taken center stage, they are living beyond the thresholds of conscience.

Like pawns in a chess game, most of us are like that, howbeit prisoners to lesser devils than these and we take assurance in the fact that our cases are not as bad but in truth, its worse because we still know, because we still feel but unlike the zombies of this world who have lost themselves to something else, there is opportunity for us to become better before it becomes harder.

There is evil in this world but then again, there is so much good as well. In thinking about it all, I marvel at a God who sits beyond the conscience of our lives and “acts” and still accepts us and not just that, works daily and desperately to get us back into His loving arms. Knowing our deeds, knowing our thoughts with hearts made bare to Him, He looks beyond it all and accepts us as whole, untainted, polished and refined in the precious blood of His son.